Less than a year ago, Ian Griffiths was appointed interim finance director at UK media group Emap. As number two to the outgoing incumbent, Gary Hughes, Griffiths was well placed to take over, although he was under no illusions that the job was his by right. âI was given a strong steer from the board that I would be benchmarked against what the market had to offer,â he says.

Ian Griffiths, Emap: Scottish Radio Holdings was our preferred candidate. Once we had 28%, it became a question of when, not if, Emap would buy the rest

Fortunately, the board approved transactions that gave Griffiths a chance to show his capability. “It was a busy six months – there was more corporate activity in that period than in the previous four years. It was a great opportunity for me to demonstrate what I could do.”

Griffiths found himself in the middle of two acquisitions worth an aggregate value of £425m (€620m), a £155m disposal, not to mention the shift to international financial reporting standards. Evidently, Griffiths did something right because he was confirmed as finance director last October. “It’s been a bit of a blur,” he says.

Emap is probably best known for its stable of consumer magazines, ranging from men’s magazines, such as Zoo and FHM, to angling and photography titles. It has expanding radio interests, a business-to-business information and events arm, and a French division. “A lot of what we do is edit content to drive audience. On the back of that audience, we can sell advertising,” says Griffiths.

Consumer and trade magazines make up three quarters of the group’s output but Emap is keen to branch out. Griffiths says: “What we’ve been doing is looking to diversify our revenue mix away from magazines and especially consumer magazines. Hence, we’ve been allocating capital to radio and business-to-business, especially information businesses.”

One of those two acquisitions last year was Worth Global Style Network, a data provider to the fashion industry, purchased for £140m. “Those are the kind of acquisitions you’re likely to see from Emap in future,” says Griffiths. The company’s aim is to offer sectors such as retail, construction and healthcare a combination of a weekly magazine, information and data products, and events and exhibitions. “We try to become the place to go in that industry,” he says.

The market was lukewarm about Emap paying a high multiple of Worth Global’s 2004 revenue. One analyst says: “Paying seven times revenue for an internet-based business takes some justifying.”

Griffiths says: “£140m was a big number and people didn’t understand the strategic rationale. They said, ‘It’s a dotcom.’ They didn’t think about how it fitted in with our business.”

He adds: “To us, Worth is a simple business – if we hit the number of subscribers we believe is achievable and we have a high degree of retention, we’ll deliver our business plan. By contrast, if you buy a stable of magazines, you usually end up with one great asset, two or three moderate assets and a couple of awful ones. It takes a lot of time and effort to turn round or close down the poor ones. Information and exhibitions in business-to-business have a higher rate of sustainable growth than magazine portfolios.”

Emap’s other significant acquisition last year was the purchase of the 72% of Scottish Radio Holdings it did not own. In 2004, it bought a 28% stake in the company, which owned Radio Clyde and Radio Forth, from Scottish Media Group, which had intended to acquire Scottish Radio Holdings before a spell of poor performance forced it to divest non-essential assets.

The timing was propitious for Emap, giving the company a clear strategic move in a volatile sector. Griffiths says: “Commercial radio has been through a lot of change and disruption. Who’s going to buy who? What’s the ownership structure going to look like? Making money has been harder than people thought.

“The topic of radio consolidation had been discussed around Emap’s board table for a while. We’d done all the research, all the analysis and Scottish Radio Holdings was our preferred candidate. There was a brilliant geographic fit between the stations. Once we had the 28% stake, it became a question of when, not if, Emap would buy the rest.”

Emap’s existing radio stations covered London and metropolitan centres in the north-west and north-east of England; adding Scottish Radio’s output gave the company national coverage – a much more attractive proposition for advertisers.

Having paid 930p for its initial stake in the company, Emap offered £10.40 for the rest, only to be forced to come back with a £10.88 offer, a 17% premium to the company’s average share price over the previous year.

Griffiths says: “It was a price that worked for both sides – we think its management team was able to show that it had created value for shareholders, while at the same time we kept enough value back for our shareholders. They weren’t pleased by being taken over – they wanted to remain independent – but at the end of the day it was a price well above where they’d ever traded. It was a straightforward and amicable piece of M&A. They were good people to do business with.”

The deal was accompanied by the immediate disposal of Score Press, which publishes local weekly newspapers in Scotland and Ireland, to Johnston Press for £155m.

Again, the market was unconvinced Emap had secured value for money. One analyst says: “Emap has public acquisition criteria but these seem to become bent from time to time. That’s the market’s suspicion.” That suspicion translates into a share price that has lagged the sector and the market over one and three years.

Asked if Emap executes M&A well, an analyst says: “Based on the evidence of the past couple of years, no.” Another adds: “The jury’s out – they paid such high prices.”

Emap is advised by Citigroup and Lazard. Griffiths says: “We don’t use them for execution but we use them for ideas generation. It would be arrogant for any corporate to assume that it knew every transaction going on but we are close to the market in which we operate. Nothing has happened that has taken us by surprise.

“We’ve had a strong relationship with the Citigroup team back from their days at Schroders. Lazard worked with us closely on the Scottish Radio transaction – they were close to that sector, did a good job and we’ll continue to use them.”

Emap’s most significant overseas operation is in France, where it is the number two in the consumer magazine market, publishing 44 titles. The division has struggled lately because of competitive launches against its titles, but Griffiths says it is an important part of the group. “It is a good business and it throws off a lot of cash,” he says.

One analyst disagrees, saying: “They’ve got problems in France that will not be solved overnight.”

Griffiths has been at Emap for more than 10 years, joining from Ernst & Young. He credits David Grigson, the former finance director and chief financial officer at Reuters, as his mentor. “He’s an inspirational guy and he guided me through my career at Emap,” he says.

Griffiths is colour blind but evidently has little difficulty spotting a fun place to work. “We have a strong owner-managed culture and ideas coming up from the teams are actively encouraged by us as a group.

“Part of the deal is that if you stand up and ask for money, you go and run it.”